We're Cooking Up Experimental Changes!

On PC ONLY, we've got a big update to test in the Experimental Branch! It features a number of new features and sweeping balance changes. Jump on the Experimental Branch to take a peek and help us test these balance changes before we bring them to the main Steam release.

Note: Some fixes and new features may not be documented in these patch notes, and other changes are being held back for the next update. Our primary intention for now is to make sure our balance changes are working well!

Known Issue

We haven't yet updated Beastie playbooks in the Tower Tourney or other encounters to reflect the balance changes in this update. We will be working on these and have everything up to date when we bring these changes to the main Steam release.

Balance Changes

We updated these changes slightly in a subsequent update. You can see the updated details here!
There are many tweaks! This update features a collection of brand-new attacks as well as adjustments to many plays which were a bit too easy to abuse. There are a smattering of stat and trait tweaks, but this time we mostly focused on re-allocating plays between different Beasties.

Field Effects

• Trap
  • Max stacks reduced to 4 (from 5)

Traits

• Shanty: Sets RHYTHM when this Beastie uses a BODY attack
  • Given to Tortanchor in place of Groove

• Groove:
  • 1.2x damage (from 1.3x)

• Foggy:
  • Only ignores opponent’s buffs (previously ignored debuffs as well)

Plays

• (NEW!) Splinter - Mind attack, 80 POW, lowers target mind DEF by 2
  • Via level up
    • Albrax

  • Via friendship
    • Plumask, Crawlurk

  
  
• (NEW!) Flight - Spirit attack, 70 POW. Always targets straight ahead. User TAGS OUT with selected benched ally.
  • Via level up
    • Zefyre, Blitzwift

  • Via friendship
    • Froofulks, Skiffrig, Conjarr, Skulkapi

  
  
• (NEW!) Scream - Spirit attack, 95 POW, target becomes NOISY 2
  • Via level up
    • Noizard, Grazada, Jellibat, Froofulks, Plumask

  • Via friendship
    • Skiffrig

  
  
• (NEW!) Cook - Spirit attack, 65 POW, lowers both opponents spirit DEF by 1
  • Via level up
    • Xiphosaur, Scauldra, Conjarr

  • Via friendship
    • Heliath, Diggum, Duggout, Squimage, Diabloceras, Froofulks

  
  
• (NEW!) Rattle - Mind attack, 50 POW, target becomes Stressed 2
  • Via level up
    • Noizard, Gastic, Wisper, Mistic,

  • Via friendship
    • Troglum, Varkabond, Yueffowl, Albrax, Crawlurk, Collarva, Wormask, Plumask, Rookee, Garood

  
  
• Introduce
  • Removed from
    • Diggum, Duggout
    • Jellibat, Froofulks
    • Noizard
    • Merrifly, Cherrily, Mascurry

  
  
• Dramatic Exit
  • Removed From
    • Noizard
    • Maraptor

  
  
• Drum
  • Added to
    • Noizard

  
  
• Muscle Memory
  • POW to 80 (from 70)

• Ego Blast
  • POW to 85 (from 70)

• Assess
  • Complete change to new effect: -1 Mind DEF to both enemies

• Overthink
  • User feels Tired 1 (no longer makes you stressed)

• Juggle
  • Only boosts Body POW if ball is hittable
  • No longer moves user to the side

• Challenge
  • POW to 90 (from 100)
  • Target feels 1 ANGRY

• Demanding Set
  • Complete change to new effect: SHIFTs ally to net. BODY, SPIRIT, MIND POW +1 to ally. Ally feels 1 STRESSED.

• Turnabout
  • Complete change to new effect: 55 POW, POW x2 when stamina is below 34

• Raw Fury
  • Always goes where it is targeted

• Supercommit
  • Removed from
    • Grazada, Jellibat, Froofulks

  
  
• Freezer
  • Changed name to Freezeray
  • POW to 80 (from 40)
  • Removed from
    • Plumask, Noizard

  
  
• Richochet
  • Can be used without volleying

Beastie

• Plumask
  • Plays Removed: Floater, Prepared Attack, Jammer
  • New plays added (noted above)
  • Level-Up moveset tweaked

• Fetcham
  • Plays Added: Comeback

• Shloom
  • +10 BDEF
  • +10 SDEF
  • +10 MDEF

• Albrax
  • +5 BDEF
  • +5 SDEF
  • +5 MDEF

• Bandicraft
  • -10 BPOW
  • +5 BDEF
  • +5 SDEF

• Riplash
  • +10 BDEF
  • +5 SDEF

• Squimage
  • Plays Added: Juggle, Pump Up, and Heart Harden

• Opposur
  • -5 MPOW
  • +5 BDEF
  • +10 MDEF
  • Plays Removed: Spike
  • Plays Added: Vigor Beam, Raw Fury

New Features

• Coach Vibe Selection: In the character creation menu (accessible when starting a new game, or by choosing to "Change Outfit" at any clothing shop) you can now choose your coach's default standing pose! Give your player character more of their own unique personality!
• Raremorph proximity hint: When a recruitable raremorph Beastie is nearby, your Beasties will occasionally react with a "sparkle," giving players a hard-to-miss visual indicator
• Raremorph display in the Beastiepedia: You can now press a button to change which palette is displayed on an individual Beastie's entry in the Beastiepedia, allowing you to more easily view alternative palettes
• Text Resolution Improvements: Text has been updated across the board to use a cleaner, higher-resolution render method. This means less blurriness on large text, and also less texture usage, surprisingly!
• Patch Notification: You'll now get a phone call from Craig when loading an old save file if your Beasties' plays have been altered due to a balance patch

Fixes and Other Changes

• Added a short delay after turn changes where the "Skip Defense" button can't be clicked, preventing players from accidentally mashing through it. Also added more strict enforcement of selection position so that the player's first Beastie is always highlighted when new turn selecton begins.
• Away Teams no longer are summoned while the player is on Expeditions, preventing random low-level ones from appearing.
• Changed the game's texture page size from 4096 to 2048. This means that the game will load textures more frequently, potentially reducing performance, but it also means loads will be smaller in size, which should reduce many crashes due to memory allocation failure.
• Fixed an issue where clearing inputs in the Keyboard Config or Controller Config would clear inputs for both input methods. This bug also prevented custom controls from being saved unless both control methods had their inputs manually edited.
• Fixed various issues with the "VS" splash screen before a multi-point match sticking on the screen if a story scene or trait activated shortly after the match began.
• Fixed an issue with displays larger than 4300px not being recognized in the game's resolution settings
• Fixed Away Teams displaying in the wrong location on the map when appearing in the Chroma Sea
• Players' online name will now be updated to their in-game name if it is updated, so that Bash Results in newsletter etc. display the correct names.
• Beasties with the Self-Assured trait will no longer yearn to be BOOSTed.
• During Bigmoon Bashes, win counts now don't update until they are collected from the server, preventing accidental double-counts and incorrect displays.
• The Superorganism trait now checks whether the Beastie is wiped when the trait resets, so that Trait-Danced Superorganisms still recover from WIPED correctly.
• Fixed text display issues during the credits sequence
• Adjusted spacing on a few menu screens to fix badly wrapped text or improve readability
• Adjusted layout of a couple areas
• Improved Combo Play generation combining "full restore" effects with "heal" effects
• Alessia's interaction no longer reads "Tower Tourney" before the challenge is unlocked
• Fixed a rare issue where certain Riley "reaction" scenes could double-trigger
• Adjusted Marlin's tutorial AI to de-prioritize attacking open lanes
• Fixed typos